The X-Project

It's been all of five-ish hours since the news of Topaz' departure before Amanda tries to get up. Cecilia isn't having any of it.



Enough was enough. She still felt like warmed-over garbage, but Topaz was still out there. With Adam. Amanda wasn't sure what exactly what she was going to be able to do, but she'd figure that out once she got out of the medlab. She pushed herself up slowly, taking a deep breath to steady the wooziness in her head, and carefully lifted her legs out of the bed and lowered them to the floor. Then she paused, waiting for the weakness to pass. She felt as weak as a day-old kitten, and wasn't sure she trusted her legs to take her weight.

"I'm not above strapping you to the bed." Cecilia's voice presaged her appearance at the door to Amanda's room. She crossed her arms, her white coat pulling tighter around her as she surveyed the other woman briefly. Her eyes locked on Amanda. "Not that you'd make it very far anyway, it seems. Now lie back down."

"Me? I wasn't going anywhere, I was just..." Amanda realised as soon as the words came out of her mouth that approach wasn't going to work. Not on Cecilia. "All right, yeah, I was taking off. But I can't stay here any more, Doc. Not with Topaz needing me."

Cecilia clicked her tongue and shook her head. "I'm not even sure where to start, girl." She moved into the room, turning her back on Amanda so she could grab a pair of gloves. "First," she looked over her shoulder, "I'm not even sure what you think you're gonna do right now, given that you can barely move." She turned again. "Not to mention you'd have to be crazy to think I'd let you out of here. You know I'm not above barricading the door and letting my force field do all the work."

"I don't know what I could do!" Amanda retorted desperately. "But I have to do something! Not just lie here and wait for them to bring her bloody body back in a fucking bag!" She made another effort to push herself off the bed, ignoring the pain and weakness from blood loss, and the fact several of the puncture wounds under the various bandages had started bleeding again as she tore stitches.

"Lie back down, Sefton." It was one of the sterner voices Cecilia had recalled using in her time at the mansion, but she'd never had a patient who was so clearly incapacitated be so obstinate. And they had a history, which, minimal as it was, still counted for something. "You're bleeding again," she pointed out as she moved quickly to the side of the bed. "And magic doesn't fight infections." A beat. "Well, maybe it does. But I'm not taking the risk."

"New York wouldn't let that happen," Amanda said sulkily, but she did lie back down. Mostly because she was feeling like if she didn't, Cecilia would have her tied down, but also because the room was spinning alarmingly. "All I needed to do was get to New York and recharge and you wouldn't have to worry about me." She paused, thinking of how cantankerous the city had been since last year. "Well, probably."

"I am not even going to pretend I fully understand what that means," Cecilia looked down as she snapped a pair of blue gloves on, "but you're not going anywhere. Not right now, anyway." She turned to the side of the bed, where one of the medlab's other employees had left some equipment. "I don't get any of this," the doctor admitted as she started to remove the dressing on some of Amanda's wounds. "I mean, no surprise, I know, hold your sass, but all this... magic." She tried not to sound disgusted — she wasn't, really. She was mostly making the effort not to say the word in a way that suggested she found it distasteful, lest she start a fight with Amanda. "I'm a pretty good doctor, and this is just beyond."

"You're telling me, Doc. After what happened, I'm wondering if it's possible for me to go into another line of work than witchcraft. Maybe something nice and safe, like lion taming." Amanda winced as the dressing pulled away, stuck to the skin with drying blood.

Cecilia was quiet as she looked at where the stitches had come undone. "Gonna have to re-do some of these. Nobody ever makes things easy here, do they?" She stood to grab a suture kit. "You ever thinking about a nice quiet life somewhere? Honestly, I'm asking. I can't imagine you doing anything but rushing into danger or whatever."

"Me neither." Amanda leaned her head back against the pillow, looking pensively up at the ceiling. "I had the chance, once. A certain Cajun friend set up a place for me in Normandy. Nice little cottage, people to look after me, peaceful village... Of course, since the frankenberry thing, I have no idea if it's even still there. I came back because I had a job to do, something that I didn't want anyone less... broken... doing. To keep my students safe." Her voice cracked a little. "You saw how well that went. Topaz was the only one who survived, and now..." Her eyes would have stung with tears, but her body was too dehydrated from blood loss for the moisture to form. "I have to get her back, Cece. I can't lose her, not this way."

"You won't." Cecilia was rather definitive and declarative, even though she had no reason to be. It wasn't like she had much insight. "You have a lot of help," she said as she turned around, her voice and her face softening somewhat. "We're all going to work on this," she tried to reassure Amanda. "We're all going to figure this out. And you're going to let yourself recover enough so that you'll be useful." The doctor sat back down and grabbed some gauze and some ointment. "This might sting." She began to clean Amanda's wounds.

She worked quietly for a few seconds. "You know, you're too hard on yourself," she said quietly, her gaze focused on the wounds as she intently avoided all eye contact with her patient. "You're probably the only reason I survived that whole thing."

"Me?" Amanda's head jerked down from her studying of the ceiling, even though Cecilia wasn't looking at her. "I don't remember a hell of a lot after Billy..." She cleared her throat and continued. "Well, after that, all I remember was you shielding us both as my powers conked out. So if anyone saved anyone, you saved me."

"Wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't pushed me. Pride is a powerful motivator. Or spite, maybe. I'm not in touch with myself enough to be sure, but either way."

Despite everything, Amanda let out a low chuckle. "Whatever it was, I'm glad it worked." She went quiet as Cecilia worked, wincing occasionally as the doctor wiped the deep punctures that dotted her skin. "Have you been able to do it since? Project your forcefield, I mean?"

Cecilia's brow furrowed slightly. She put the gauze aside for a second and started setting out what she'd need to repair her busted stitches. "Yeah," she said after a second, looking up finally. "I mean, once or twice. I'm still working at it. Tends to help when I'm under extreme duress, which I guess I haven't been under too often." She picked up a needle driver. "Not lately, anyway."

"Well, if you need some extra... motivation, I could work with you?" Amanda suggested. It was possibly a sign of how much she needed to feel useful that she was having this conversation at all. "I'm good at poking your pride, apparently."

"You'll forgive me," Cecilia said, "if I have some skepticism about that offer." She scooted toward Amanda and continued to ready her tools. "Doesn't really seem like us, does it?"

"Has anyone told you you're annoyingly perceptive?" Amanda grumbled. "All right, fine. But you're gunna have to distract me somehow. Otherwise I'll drive us both us balmy while we're waiting for news."

"So that's your pitch?" Cecilia raised an eyebrow. Then she started to re-suture. "Let you taunt me, because medicine?"

"Hey, if it works, don't knock it. Better than tying me to the bed, at any rate."